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The 2nd Infantry Division online briefing for Flames of War has a special rule called Ivory X that lets you fire anti-tank guns and anti-aircraft guns like a normal artillery bombardment. The briefing lists the strength, anti-tank, and firepower values of these bombardments as '-'.

Does this mean that they use the normal direct fire stats (seems overpowered)? Or do they fire with essentially 0's, meaning they can't hurt armor or dug-in infantry outside of causing pinning?

1 Answer
1

I don't own a copy of the rule book, it's 75$. The briefing you linked to says the following about the Ivory X Special Rules:

Ivory X Special Rules

You may purchase an Ivory X Staff Team for +25 points. Deploy the Ivory X Staff Team when you would deploy Independent Teams.

Anti-aircraft Artillery Platoons and Towed Tank Destroyer Platoons that have a Command team within 6”/15cm of the Ivory X Staff team can use it as a Staff Team to fire Bombardments.

Anti-aircraft Artillery Platoons and Towed Tank Destroyer Platoons that do not have a Command team within 6”/15cm of the Ivory X Staff Team cannot fire bombardments.

A Bombardment controlled by Ivory X uses all of the American Artillery special rules on page 240 of the rulebook, except for Time On Target.

Without a copy of the rules, it is difficult to say if anything within the rules for American Artillery special rules contradicts what is in the linked briefing.

Luckily, you can gather from the rest of the briefing that the Ivory X bombardments can only be used to pin down enemy units. The historical accounts mention that Ivory X was able to pin down the enemy. This is also supported by the fact that all Ivory X bombardment rows of the chart show '-' for Rate of Fire, Anti-Tank, and Firepower.

Ivory X provided the Indianhead Division with plenty of firepower in the form of .50 cal and 40mm anti-aircraft guns. Their harassing fire helped keep the Germans from moving freely through the outskirts and hills of Brest, allowing the Indianheads to easily move in and outflank the enemy.

Firing Ivory X bombardments 40”/100cm - - -

Firing Ivory X bombardments 48”/120cm - - -

Firing Ivory X bombardments 64”/160cm - - -

The only thing that still confuses me a little about the rules, is regarding Towed Tank Destroyer Platoons. The rules mention that linked Ivory X Tank Destroyers are the only ones eligible to fire a bombardment and only using the Ivory X special rules. Rereading the above Ivory X Special Rules, would lead one to believe that you only have two possible answers to the question. My guess is that the answer is the former, but the use of the word "can" could mean that you have a choice of either pinning down enemies or firing bombardments as a Staff Team.

1) Use the 1 ROF, 2 Anti-Tank, 6 Firepower stats for Staff Team when firing bombardments.

-1 The American artillery rules relate to special abilities for calling in bombardments. They also represent about 2 pages of text, so I won't quote them here. Ivory X is an additional rule not covered by the main book. I don't want to sounds harsh but if you are not familiar with a rules system you should not answer before doing the research.
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CaulynDarrApr 16 '12 at 1:22

@CaulynDarr, I would hope the the rules would be written clearly enough that someone that is unfamiliar with them could come to the same conclusion as an expert. You should have done more research when asking the question to point out clearly the section in the briefing regarding "Ivory X Special Rules". -1 for being unfriendly to someone trying to help.
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user1873Apr 16 '12 at 2:36

Your original answer was unhelpful. You basically said you don't know the rules, but - is sometimes 0 in other unrelated rules systems. You're new answer is better, but it's clear you are unfamiliar with the artillery rules in FoW and what it means to fire a bombardment with a staff team. A staff team is a rifle team in addition to being a staff team. That's why they fave weapon stats, but when the fire a bombardment, they merely allow the artillery battery using them to take advantage of a few special rules.
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CaulynDarrApr 16 '12 at 11:53

3

I'd also like to add that the voting system isn't about being friendly, it's about scoring the objective content and helpfulness of a question or answer. I found your answer to be un-researched and unhelpful.
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CaulynDarrApr 16 '12 at 11:59

1

I removed the -1 because of the extra effort put into the answer. I won't up vote or accept until the misunderstanding about how staff teams operate is removed.
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CaulynDarrApr 16 '12 at 12:39